Texas Public School District Wants to Help Students Grow in Math

As this school district shifts to a blended learning environment, they seek to include a math software solution to implement for their station rotation model.

State: Texas

Number of Students: 2,524

School Type: Public School District

Free and Reduced Lunch: 82.1%

Grade Level: PK-12

English Language Learners: 36.5%

School Context

This school district serves 2,530 students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds with a wide range of individual needs. The student population includes economically disadvantaged students (82%), at-risk learners (65%), second language learners (36%), special needs students (9%), and gifted and talented students (5%). They aim to transform the learning environment and teaching style to help more students reach their maximum potential. They are seeking to get 90% of students to spend a portion of each school day in a blended learning environment, resulting in all students reaching their maximum potential to be prepared for postsecondary life, whether it be college or career.

State of Technology

After analyzing student data, the district has discovered that students are struggling in math. They are attempting to remodel from a traditional teaching method in order to make learning more authentic. They need a way to track student progress and build skills through this new model.

Over the years, teachers used a variety of software, most recently Compass Learning, to helpsupplement instruction in their classroom. However, due to the frequent changes, lack of professional development, and perhaps poor implementation, these tools did not provide much actionable data. They would like to try again with a much more structured approach.

Tech Needs & Requirements

The school district is looking for an adaptive math tool that helps students where they are and helps them grow. They would like the following features to help them track student progress and implement a station rotation model in their classroom. First and foremost, the district would like the tool to have rigorous content. The tool should be built not for simply remediation, but also for acceleration. The district would also like it if teachers were also able to assign content as well so that they can sometimes align the concepts to the unit they are teaching. They would like a dashboard where students and teachers can see their progress. If possible, and simple enough, they would like students to see some of their data in this dashboard. For the administration, they would like to be able to pull reports based off grade levels and classroom progress in additional usage data, time spent on task, how many attempts.Great data is important.The tool should have scaffolding, like helper text, guiding, not just giving students the right answer. The teachers should be able to assign content and override the plan if a student is struggling with a concept, so they might get a supplement.

Students should not have much control. This district would like the tool to identify the sequence and pace based on students' skills.

Teachers will be assigning the station for students where they will be working independently on this tool. Teachers will work with students in small groups or 1-on-1 after analyzing student data provided by the tool.

The tool must be TEKS aligned, be adaptive, offer robust data and reporting and provide rigorous content, not simply remediation, but acceleration. Students will be working on desktops and iPads, so the tool must be device agnostic. The district would like reporting in the following areas: progress data; usage data; time on task; how many attempts per question; aggregate data by objective, by class, by student demographic data, and grouping. The tool must Integrate with a learning management system,probably Canvas.